My rotting heart has started toswell.
It’s lifting my leather jerkin. Making it distend outward with dizzying agony, and I realize what’s happening.
It’s about to burst.
No.
My heart is choosingnowto give out on me? Right when I finally have a way to get to Auren? When I’m finally on my way?
I’m not dying. I fuckingrefuse.
But my body seems to have other ideas.
My heart is filling my body with poison. It feels like hot, acidic rain pouring in, flooding it past capacity, washing out all my blood and stinging every vein.
I look at my wrists and hands where my rot has pumped in. Every inch of visible skin is riddled with so many black lines it nearly overruns my flesh.
I lose the ability to hold on. My grip slips off the reins, body jerking as I slam against Argo’s back, unable to sit up, unable to doanything. I feel more than see Argo curl his head around to look at me, and then there’s a deafening roar as I start to slip sideways.
Fuck!
Panic pounces, limbs flailing as I start to fall.
I jerk to an abrupt stop as the straps holding me to Argo’s saddle cinch, keeping me seated, though they strain with the stretch.
The saddle starts to twist over Argo’s middle as my body tips until I’m hanging off his side. This one strip of leather is the only thing keeping me from plummeting through the air.
The pain is unimaginable.
Argo roars again and tries to twist his body to get me back where I’m supposed to be. But I can’t move. I’m paralyzed from the spasms, can feel the poison leaching up into my neck, my cheeks, my eyes…
Darkness blotches my vision just as I feel Argo dive.
My stomach hits my throat as we speed through the air. The leather strip twists, making me pitch backward as it slips, and I get torn off the saddle. The only thing still connecting me to Argo is the single strap wrapped around my waist.
If the leather were to snap…the buckle to fail…
Pain spreads out like bolts of lightning through my entire body.
Fuck fuck fuck—
I might be dead before we hit the ground.
The air whips at me, jerking my body left and right as Argo continues to roar. Continues to dive.
I’m streaming behind him like a flag caught in the wind, and then the strained strap on the saddlesnaps.
Without the tether, the air whips me away like a leaf in the wind, and instead of being pulled down with intention, I start to truly fall.
I fall and fall, staring up at the dark.
I have a moment to wonder if this is what Auren felt when she fell through the rip. If this is my punishment for sending her in there alone. I gasp and flail, terror fisting me.
I’m falling.
Dying.
Heart about to burst through my chest, rot ready to rupture.
